At National Royal Rangers Council and Conference March 19-21,
in Springfield, Missouri, 500 organizational leaders learn
Royal Rangers isn't changing so much as expanding. In addition
to outdoor program, churches can choose from sports, trades,
technologies and arts, to reach young men of all interests. New
"Royal Rangers Leader Manual" will be released later this year.
See http://RoyalRangers.ag.org for a downloadable "Seek and
Save" magazine that describes entire ministry plan and gives
opportunity for feedback. For questions or suggestions, see
http://royalrangers.ag.org/connect/qlc.

** Homosexual movement makes inroads in schools

Some say recent news of kindergartners asked to sign "pledge
cards" in support of homosexuals and a class of first-graders
taking field trip to participate in teacher's lesbian wedding,
illustrate growing influence of homosexual movement in America's
schools. Studies show most parents do not support pro-homosexual
curricula. In 2004 survey by Kaiser Family Foundation, just 8
percent of high school parents and 4 percent of middle school
parents said schools should teach "that homosexuality is
acceptable." Yet, number of pro-homosexual programs and curricula
increasing. Some parents have sought legal help and urge other
parents to be aware of what is being taught in schools.

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Upcoming events: March 27-29: Wichita, Kansas; April 3-5:
Milwaukee, Wisconsin; April 17-19: Sacramento, California;
April 24-26: Dallas, Texas; Clare, Michigan; May 1-3:
Lexington, Kentucky; June 5-7, Rockford, Illinois.
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** ROYAL RANGERS READY FOR iPod(r) GENERATION

At the National Royal Rangers Council and Conference held last week,
March 19-21, in Springfield, Missouri, 500 organizational leaders
gathered to hear the vision for the future of Royal Rangers. What
they heard left many leaders pleased and eager for the future.

"We are taking Royal Rangers to the iPod(r) Generation," states
national Royal Rangers director Doug Marsh. "In a nutshell, what
that means is we're creating a simple and flexible mentoring
ministry for future men that the men in our churches will find
useful, bringing them years of ministerial success and personal
satisfaction."

Marsh explains that just as current iPods(r) are similar in their
robust ability to download and play a multitude of media, the
content on each iPod(r) is unique < each reflecting its users own
preferences, no two being exactly alike in their play list or
content. The new Royal Rangers' efforts will reflect the need for
supplying powerful materials that will meet the unique needs of
churches of every size and location.

"The program content will reflect the vision, personality and
ministry of the church and the demographic they're trying to reach,"
Marsh says. "They choose their budget, the uniform that allows them
to best minister to boys and young men and the tracks they're
interested in."

According to Marsh, Royal Rangers isn't changing so much as it is
expanding.

"Royal Rangers is still an outdoor program," he says, "but now
churches can also choose from one or more interests, including
sports, trades, technologies and the arts, in addition to camping."

Marsh says that many leaders expressed enthusiasm for the expanded
Royal Rangers program during the conference, and so far, all the
evaluation forms have also expressed great excitement about the
direction this ministry to future men has taken.

"We believe every church in America will find that all obstacles
have been removed that would otherwise prevent them from running
Royal Rangers," Marsh says.

Currently, the new Royal Rangers Leader Manual is slated to be
released later this year. In the meantime, the Royal Rangers Web
site offers a downloadable "Seek and Save" magazine that describes
the entire ministry plan as well as various places for providing
feedback, asking questions or making recommendations.

"The resources to back all these new tracks will begin to become
available early next year as we begin to move a healthy portion of
our curriculum to an online delivery system," Marsh says. "This will
include the whole gamut of interest tracks."

For more information about Royal Rangers, see its Web site at
http://RoyalRangers.ag.org. For questions or suggestions, see
http://royalrangers.ag.org/connect/qlc.

--Dan Van Veen

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** HOMOSEXUAL MOVEMENT MAKES INROADS IN SCHOOLS

Last October, a group of first-graders at a San Francisco charter
school took a field trip to City Hall to participate in their
teacher's lesbian wedding.

In November, kindergarteners in Hayward, California, were asked to
sign "pledge cards" in support of homosexuals.

In December, more than two dozen teachers in Philadelphia took a day
off in the middle of the school week to protest the passage of
California's marriage amendment and to discuss ways to introduce gay
issues to their students.

While some dismiss such stories as examples of poor judgment among a
few educators, others say they illustrate the growing influence of
the homosexual movement in America's schools.

"Unfortunately, these are not isolated incidents," says Mat Staver,
founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, a conservative legal
organization based in Orlando, Florida. "They're becoming more and
more frequent. The schools have become a battlefront for social
agendas."

When social agendas in classrooms clash with values instilled at
home, parents often face a difficult dilemma.

Michelle Turner of Silver Spring, Maryland, never thought of herself
as an instigator. The Christian mother of six had been a longtime
supporter of Montgomery County Public Schools, serving as PTA
president, room mom and fundraising organizer. In 2004, she
volunteered to serve on a committee that had the task of reviewing
curriculum for eighth- and 10th-grade sex education. Then the
trouble started.

The material was filled with references to homosexuality, which the
authors claimed was no more abnormal than being left-handed. Turner
later learned much of the text had been written by homosexual
advocacy organizations, including the Gay, Lesbian and Straight
Education Network.

"I was dumbfounded," Turner says. "It had a very pro-homosexual and
pro-bisexual slant."

As one of the few dissenting members on the committee, Turner was
unsuccessful in her attempts to block the curriculum's approval. She
continued to protest it, however, spreading the word to other
concerned parents and organizing an opposition group, Citizens for a
Responsible Curriculum. She also sought legal help from Liberty
Counsel, which filed a lawsuit against the school district.

In 2005, a federal court blocked the school from using the
curriculum. However, Turner says new curriculum implemented this
school year contains similar statements about homosexuality. Her
organization continues to petition the school district to reconsider
its approach to sex education.

Turner says Christians have a responsibility to investigate what's
being taught in the public schools, especially parents who have
children attending classes.

"Parents need to wake up and find out what is going on in their
child's school," she says. "If more parents who are opposed to this
instruction would find out what's going on and speak out against it,
we would see far less of it."

Studies show most parents do not support pro-homosexual curricula.
In a 2004 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, just 8 percent of
high school parents and 4 percent of middle school parents said
schools should teach "that homosexuality is acceptable."

Turner is hopeful that concerned parents will take more of an
interest in the issue.

"When more and more parents realize what's going on and that this is
really an indoctrination, we'll see more parents taking a stand and
saying, 'No, this is enough. You've gone too far,' " she says.

However, some radical programs fly under parents' radar by
masquerading behind agreeable ideals such as acceptance and
tolerance.

Welcoming Schools, an anti-bullying program for elementary kids, was
created by the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington, D.C.-based
homosexual rights organization.

The program teaches vocabulary words such as lesbian, gay, bisexual
and transgender. It uses books such as The Sissy Duckling and King
and King, a story about two men who fall in love and marry.

It also employs a puzzle in which students are asked to arrange
pictures of children and adults into seven families. The catch, as
students are meant to discover, is that the puzzle doesn't form
seven traditional families. Placing same-gender adults together is
the only way to complete it.

The program, introduced this school year in three Minneapolis
schools, "will move toward broader distribution Š after the
completion of the pilot phase in summer of 2008," according to the
Human Rights Campaign's Web site.

An organization based in Seattle called The Safe Schools Coalition
also promotes homosexual causes under the guise of an anti-bullying
program. The group's Web site even addresses spiritual issues,
providing information about books and religious organizations that
assure students homosexuality is not a sin.

Though the organization claims to promote schools "where every
educator can teach and where every child can learn," a blog
sponsored by the organization recently called for the "weeding out"
of educators who disagree with the homosexual agenda.

"It doesn't hurt to put pressure on homophobes and transphobes to
get out and stay out," the writer said. "People who are unwilling to
self-educate and open their eyes to ever-growing worlds of sexuality
and gender should be made to feel unwelcome."

Turner says she and her children have been harassed and threatened
by people who disagree with their views. Yet she says the experience
hasn't been completely void of educational value.

"My kids have come to realize the importance of taking a stand and
that you cannot always be the winner of the popularity contest,"
Turner says. "If you're really going to profess a belief in God and
His teachings, you need to be able to express that < not just on
Sunday morning, but in everyday situations."

--Christina Quick, Today's Pentecostal Evangel

August 3, 1958 – October 10, 2008

It is with great sorrow I write to announce that Perry David Siddle (50), our esteemed national Royal Rangers training coordinator, was called home to be with the Lord early Friday morning, October 10, 2008, in Springfield, Missouri after a sudden yet valiant fight against cancer.

Perry joined the national team in June 2007 after serving as a Royal Rangers commander at First Assembly of God in Augusta, Georgia, on the Georgia district staff, and on the Southwest Region staff for many years. Like so many of our leaders, Perry was a model of godly manhood. He loved God most, was fully invested in the wellbeing of his family, and worked a job to support his family and underwrite his involvement in the ministries of this Church. As national training coordinator, Perry was diligent, effective, and always cheerful.

I first met Perry in 2002 when he was called upon to spend a few weeks at the national office working on some writing assignments. I quickly learned of his great love for missions. Years later Perry would challenge his district to raise missions funds for Royal Rangers International, suggesting that he would eat dog food if the goal they were aiming for was met. And, yes, as promised, he ate the dog food! He always quipped that the experience made his hair more shinny. Perry knew how to set worthy goals and rally others to help reach them.

As a member of the national Royal Rangers team, Perry was a go-to-guy; he always completed things with excellence. The plans designed for the future of Royal Rangers training have been thoughtfully and wisely established. The contribution Perry made in just one year will influence Royal Rangers all across the nation for decades!

Perry’s greatest contribution has been in leaders. He knew that before we can reach a boy we must reach a man. Preparing men to evangelize, equip, and empower the next generation of Christlike men and lifelong servant leaders was one of Perry’s greatest ministerial joys. Perry’s investment will endure because he lived his life’s motto found in 2 Corinthians 4:18, “Don’t fix your eyes on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal.”

We will all miss Perry’s friendliness and cheerfulness. Even while suffering pain in his hospital room, Perry would smile and refer to himself as Future Escapee ###-2 (his room and bed number). He fully intended to fight and beat his cancer with a great attitude.

Perry loved sweets as anyone who was around him long found out. During one long staff meeting, Perry laid Hershey Kisses on the table in the form of a Royal Rangers emblem, humorously chastising anyone who dared eat one of them. While he knew the importance of our mission, he always injected appropriate humor into the mix.

Perry is survived by his wife and fellow Ranger Kids commander, Lisa, whom he married on July 10, 1982. Together they were blessed with three beautiful daughters: Heather (22), Natasha (1) and Michaela (11). They are an exemplary family—fully devoted to the Lord, His cause, and to one another. Please stand with Lisa and the girls in prayer during this time of loss.

Visitation and service arrangements will be announced shortly.

It has been said that you don’t appreciate what you have until you lose it. In Perry’s case, we knew and valued who he was all along. Perry was an authentic follower of Christ, a devoted husband and father, and a highly motivated Royal Rangers leader. We have lost and will miss Perry, but we will never forget his example.

Rev. Doug Marsh

National Director

Royal Rangers

http://royalrangers.ag.org/Perry%20Siddle%20Tribute.pdf

August 13, 2008

Hello, everyone. Here is some more good news concerning Perry.

Yesterday he was sent home! He has responded well thus far to the seven-day chemo treatment he received. He will have a week off and then another week of chemo, outpatient.

Perry is a walking miracle but is still in need of our earnest prayers—that the cancer in his stomach would be eliminated and that his liver would be completely healed. Also, pray for Perry's overall strength and wellbeing.

Thank you, everyone, for your prayers and expressions of love. Over 100 birthday cards were received in response to our email inviting your participation. During the 10 days Perry's life rested in the balance, he described hearing thousands of prayers being offered in unison on his behalf! God is answering our prayers.

Please continue to storm heaven on Perry's behalf, and trust the Healer for his complete and perfect wholeness.

Thankful for your prayers,

Doug Marsh

National Director Royal Rangers

Congratulations to the 3 leaders from the Northeast Region who graduated from Advanced Academy at Eagle Rock, MO May 22-25.

Scott Hurt - Penn-Del District

Paul Sheaffer - Penn-Del District

Steve Slimm - New Jersey District